TELEVISION REVIEW; Home Makeover Where Surprises Are Negotiated, Not Sprung

By NED MARTEL

Published: March 3, 2005

In ''reDesign,'' HGTV expands the home renovation genre by homing in on designer-client relations. In other programs, like ''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'' and ''Trading Spaces,'' the owners are blind to the process of transformation and, in the final minutes, their eyes widen with delight or surprise. (It would be a far more interesting ''reveal'' to watch the client look at the tax bill for all these freebies.)

On ''reDesign,'' Kenneth Brown is the fastidious champion of uncommon material, billed by the cable channel as ''a dream to work with.'' Only through some gentle badgering does Mr. Brown get the blessing of Mark Frey, a Southern California homeowner in tonight's premiere, to make his newly purchased bungalow's main room into the ''Exotic Livable Retreat'' of the episode's title.

Mr. Frey commits to a gut renovation before Mr. Brown shows up to configure the vast empty space, with French doors opening to a valley view. The client is nudged toward a sleek open floor plan, suggesting the ''clean lines'' that had inspired Mr. Frey in Bali and Thailand.

The promised tension burbles into their months-long collaboration as Mr. Brown tries to perk up Mr. Frey's penchant for the ordinary. In one taste-elevation exercise, Mr. Brown stains patches of the wooden floor. One section gets an ebony shade, preferred by the designer, and another is painted mahogany, favored by the client, who is a first-time fixer-upper. Of course, the black beats the bland.

Other discussions dwell on touches that another natty, blond TV stylemaker, Carson Kressley, would gallicly call ''zhudging.'' Olive green gets slathered on the wall instead of the client's light but drab inclination, a puttylike color derided as ''graige'' when it popped up on frocks in the Oscar fashion-recap shows. Mr. Brown succeeds in getting travertine adhered to the living-area wall and the kitchen backsplash.

Mr. Frey O.K.'s chrome accents around the fireplace and kitchen appliances. The designer loses one battle, though: the teak paneling once agreed on as ''masculine and timeless'' gives way to the client's requested cherry.

Though the focus of these shows is the renovation of a house, the drama involves the rehabbing of a human. Mr. Frey, a 30-something former apartment dweller, is making the shell of a house into a home, and any emerging-butterfly moments here are less dramatic than those on ''Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,'' which also does a more forceful job of pushing brand names.

Unfortunately, the d?r achieved on ''reDesign'' and the various ''Queer Eyes'' runs toward standard, antiseptic opulence. At least the Fab Fiver Thom Filicia tries to incorporate some personal element, like a precious photo blown up to poster size, and ''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'' goes deep into each family's personal story to find a soul-stirring design element.

On ''reDesign,'' Mr. Brown's attempt at Balinese exoticism veers in a creative but safe direction; the look is all so new, without provenance, straight out of the bubble wrap. The conventional model-home feel of Mr. Frey's new space, with place settings by the bar stools along his new kitchen island, make you wish for design visitations by more mischievous visionaries.

What would Mr. Frey's reaction be if the design-magazine barons of pastiche Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan had their way with the space? Or Disney's imagineers? Or the ''Sex and the City'' costumer Patricia Field? Some explosive force needs to take the home, homeowner and level of style in general out of its comfort zone as a reminder that interiors can be expressions of inner life rather than of mere purchasing power.